Empty
by HauntedSilver
Summary: Everyone in Storybrooke was missing something, something that left a hole inside of them. But everyone in The Fairy Tale World had their own tragedy. A collection of one-shots about characters in both Storybrooke abd the Fairy Tale World.
1. Empty Soul

**A/N: I've probably started too many projects this week, but I couldn't resist with this one. I really, really tried not to do a Rumplestiltskin one, but I couldn't help it (that's next chapter by the way, heeheehee).  
**

It wasn't that she didn't have a heart.

No, Regina was only evil because she didn't have a soul. Her heart been ripped out years and years ago, at the same moment her mother had torn out Daniel's. It had taken longer to turn evil after that.

Hearts, in Regina's opinion, were only for emotions. For love and heartbreak. Pain and joy. But when someone says that she is heartless, that is terribly wrong. She does have a heart, shattered pieces in her chest. These fragments can still feel love, kind of.

But true compassion, Regina finds, true sympathy, comes from the soul. It's where the conscience that cricket keeps prattling about is. So when someone screams as she tears their lives and homes apart, that she has no heart, what they really should say is she has no soul.

Soulless creatures are the ones that are truly evil. The darkest being can strut around perfectly cruelly with a heart, but they must be missing a soul.

Take Rymplestiltskin for example. He created The Dark Curse, the curse to end all curses, and yet he has a heart. It was far too easy to break really, shriveled as it is. But what dear Rumple was really missing was a soul.

Not that Regina's about to give him one.

As she holds The Dark Curse, this runs through her mind. The curse itself, bears no heart nor soul. It truly is evil. Irreparably so. It forces you to chose between heart or darkness, and that's where Regina stands now. Rumplestiltskin's words are thrumming through her head, and the heart she still clings to beats a little faster. She must decide between hatred and heart, longing and love. They are terribly opposing forces.

_This curse isn't gonna be easy, dearie. _

No, it's not.

_The question is, how far are you willing to go?_

She'd said as far as it takes. She would trade her very soul for darkness. Despite their insistence -how petty they were to argue with her, she was only getting what she wanted- Regina really did have a heart and soul. Her broken heart had mended a little, sure. But her soul was not quite yet gone. It was there, but it was empty. As close as one could get to having none.

Regina stabbed her father, the only thing left she loved. And as the dark curse rose from the ashes of his heart, she felt it ripped from her.

Her soul.

The empty thing that had kept her from total darkness disappeared. Her heart did nothing about it.

The curse sucked her soul away from her, and she already felt its absence.

And she loved it.


	2. Empty Heart

**A/N: I actually have all of chapter five written (Empty Handed- Belle), because I was so excited for it. But I have a set order in mind so you'll all have to wait (if any of you even read this, I have no idea). Enjoy!**

**-•-**

It had been exactly thirty-four days, six hours, and twenty three minutes since Belle had left him.

Or, more accurately, he left her. Because even though she'd been the one to walk out the door, he'd left her. But he couldn't go back on that now. He couldn't run to her kingdom and beg for forgiveness, or wherever it was that she was hiding. No.

Rumplestiltskin was a coward. But he had to maintain the flimsy strength he had and not go back. He had to pretend nothing happened, and he had never fallen for a girl named Belle.

But when the Queen flounced into his palace and brought Belle up again, he found he couldn't forget. He couldn't pretend it had been all one-sided.

"What was her name?" Regina grinned, knowing all the perfect ways to taunt him. They knew each other's strengths, and more importantly, each other's weaknesses. Regina knew just the right buttons to push to make him crack. But today Rumplestiltskin longed to appear unbreakable.

"Margie?"

He sat quietly, spinning. He was going to ignore her. He was going to pretend she wasn't even there.

"Verna?"

Not even close, he wanted to say. Not even close.

"Belle." The name dropped from his lips like honey, without his knowing. The sound of her name sent the knife in his heart twisting, wrenching his innards.

When the Queen told him Belle had died, it was even more difficult to maintain his impassive exterior. For one hopeful moment, he had thought he could have his Belle back again, forgetting the bravery and resolution he was trying to forge.

"She died."

"You're lying." Rumplestiltskin could almost always be sure. Regina was a formidable liar (him more so, of course), but he knew her like the curtains across his windows and the patterns on his walls.

"Am I?" She challenged. And he found he couldn't tell.

So he banished the Queen from his castle for the day. But her parting words cut deep into him. It was almost as if someone had found the knife with his name, and thrust it into his gut.

"Place is looking dusty Rumple," She dropped the nickname about as affectionately as he called people 'dearie', only it implied that she knee him like the back of her hand, or the apples on her tree. "You should get a new girl."

Rumplestiltskin hadn't been sure what that implied. That Belle was replaceable, or that he'd even consider a new caretaker? Yet her words still took his marred, mangled heart and tossed it from the highest walls of his castle.

But it didn't matter.

Belle was right.

His heart was empty, anyway.


	3. Empty Lungs

**A/N: I'm not actually sure where I was going with last chapter, but I still like it. Especially the ending. Out of all the chapters I have written, though, Empty Handed is my favourite.**

I wanted to do something...different, with this chapter. I don't think anyone else has really written about Graham's death, or the huntsman. Being in his head was certainly...interesting.

-•-

Unnatural.

That's what it was. That's what this Queen woman was doing.

It was a little heard to think straight, really, as the Queen was ripping the Huntsman's heart from his chest. She held her prize aloft for him to see when she was done. He'd seen a thousand and one honourable hearts, but never that of a human. And never one that glowed.

"What are you going to do to me?" He found himself asking. How could she hold his heart and him still be alive?

The woman lunged at him, kissing him more passionately than he had ever known. Or, not, passionately. The Huntsman hadn't been kissed before, but even he could tell that lust was all it was to her.

"You're now mine," She told him, unlawfully from his lips. His jaw was still in her grasp. He liked that even less than the guarded stone of the castle. The stones that made him feel enclosed. "My pet."

Pet. The worst fate he could ever think to befall anyone. The Hunstman lived free and wild, as every creature should. Not boxed in upon by these terrible castles and wooden houses.

"And this is your cage." Her voice was commanding as she flipped open the lid of a box. Caged. It was such a horrible thought that he would scream if there was enough air in his lungs. "From this moment forward, you will do everything that I say," So not only was he a pet, the Huntsman was a slave now too. "And if you ever disobey me," The rage on her face reminded him of a bear protecting her young, only without the love or compassion. "If you ever try to run away," But how the Huntsman longed to run. Like deer that chose flight whenever faced with danger, he wanted to flee into the woods and never return. To never consider being near humanity again. "All I have to do is squeeze."

It was like a snake had twined around him. The Huntsman sometimes watched snakes kill their prey. They squeezed and constricted so tight their prey died, slowly and painfully, he was sure. But now he knew as that same constriction went around the place where his heart belonged. All around him a great snake -the Queen's slender hand- was clasping him, making the Huntsman's insides crush themselves in.

He fell to the floor the moment her grip tightened, clutching the empty place where his heart went. Groans escaped him, trying to slim his pain. Nothing could take it away though. Nothing could make this better.

The Huntsman was rapidly losing the ability to think, to breathe. He was going to die. He was going to die. She was killing him. He'd never see outside these barren castle walls again.

"Guards!" The constriction upon him lessened, but the Huntsman still struggled with his respiratory abilities. "Your life is now in my hands." The Queen's face contorted into something between a grin and a sneer. "Forever." The guards who held him up tightened their grip. "Take him to my bedchamber."

The Huntsman could only stare after her in shock as they hauled him away. He was a pet and a slave and his life was in her hands. He'd rather die than this. He'd rather anything than this.

The Huntsman felt as the Queen carefully dropped the heart-his heart- into a little box and slid it into place. He felt trapped. More trapped than he had ever known. Even more than when his gleaming organ was in her hand, more than when she squeezed so hard he couldn't breathe.

But as he lay sprawled alone in her bed, waiting, the Huntsman made a wish. He wished that for that moment he had not found his heart. That he had not cut out a deer's instead. He wished his heart had remained suppressed.

Because now it was trapped in a little box, and he would never get it back.

-•••-

"All better?" Graham mumbled, wiping the last of the blood from Emma's forehead. He perfect face was delicately cradled in his hand.

"Yeah," Emma whispered. He stepped away for a moment, resisting the urge to kiss her again. Maybe it was that he was addicted to the rush that those images provided. The ones he'd seen in his dreams. Mr. Gold had called them past lives. Henry told him he was the Huntsman who cut out a deer's heart instead of Snow White's. Emma didn't believe in her son's fairytales, but Graham found they made a lot more sense than his reality.

"What?" Emma was staring at him. But then her face broke into a fantastic smile. It was nice to see, because she usually scowled or looked at him disapprovingly. She was leaning towards him now. Their noses were brushing.

And then she was kissing him. Graham allowed himself to dissolve into it, to put his hand on her waist, and the other on her jaw again. It was better than two thousand of Regina's kisses. It was better than two thousand anything.

The memories flowed into him again. And the rush of adrenaline. There was an arrow, than a deer who's heart it had struck. The wolf and a flash of a man and Regina. Regina with much longer hair and a red dress that hugged her curves. She looked far more attractive in this memory, but Emma was better. Then Mary Margaret (also with long hair). And her exposed throat and a knife. More fragments of flashes whirled through him, too fast to catch. A box. Regina. A red lumpy thing that looked like a heart and-

Graham pulled back for a second. He needed to get his head straight.

"Graham? You okay?"

"I remember." Emma was staring at him skeptically. "I remember." The memories were sorting themselves out now.

"You remember what?" Emma's eyes looked grey now. He'd never really been sure what colour they were. But he wanted to lose himself in them.

"Thank you." She was grinning that beautiful smile. Graham leaned in to kiss her again. She was-

Piercing pain in his chest. His heart. It hurt. More than anything, ever. And his lungs weren't giving him any air and-

"Graham!"

He couldn't breathe. He was falling, falling. He thought. He couldn't think. He didn't know his own name. There was only pain. Pain and him. And then...

Silence.


	4. Empty Mind

**A/N: Because I feel like it, shout out to Shall be lifted Nevermore, my favourite (only) reviewer.  
**

He felt like a newborn baby.

Well, not quite. David couldn't remember what being a newborn baby felt like. But he couldn't remember anything.

A coma. A hospital. He didn't know how he got there.

Apparently he was found on the side of a road. But David didn't remember that, and it didn't seem like the type of thing he would forget. Yet nothing was familiar to him. He didn't remember Storybrooke, or his wife, or his dog. Did David like dogs? He couldn't tell. He didn't even know if David was even his name.

He had one memory, and one memory only.

There was a voice that had been speaking to him, of Troll Bridges and stollen rings; jarring him awake. He didn't remember his walk to the Toll Bridge or exactly what the voice had said. He didn't remember the woods or the way he had gone or escaping the hospital. David just remembered waking up. He remembered breathing, like he never once in his life had breathed before. He remembered a face, filled with joy and light. Her voice was like honey, and there was some sort of golden halo around her. She was the only thing he could remember, and the only thing since that felt familiar.

It was almost like she was real, and everything else was fake.

Mary Margaret.

He couldn't stop, he couldn't stay away. David didn't remember the life he found himself in, and he didn't think it was very fair that he had to be stuck with if. He hadn't chosen Kathryn, and to him love was the one thing everyone had a right to pick. It was like his house and all these people he was supposed to know. David tried to fill his head with these new names, hoped they would bring some recognition, some memories. They didn't, and there was only one name that mattered to David anymore.

Mary Margaret Blanchard.

He told her countless times that she was the only thing that felt right. That she was the only thing he wanted to choose. But as David watched the little windmill twirl 'round and 'round he found his head pulsing with hundreds of images and memories. Memories that hadn't been there before. But his empty mind opened to them, longing for something to cling to.

And now he couldn't let go.


	5. Empty Handed

_"I don't want you anymore, dearie."_

The words rang over and over in an infinite circle inside Belle's head. He'd tossed her out. He didn't want her, and yet he loved her. Needed her more than he cared to admit.

_"My power me means more to me than you." _

Belle supposed this was fair. She had fallen in love with a monster, after all. But he could've been a man if he just believed. If only he'd followed his heart.

His empty, empty, heart.

For a moment -one foolish, wrong moment that went against almost everything she believed in- she wished she hadn't kissed him. Belle wished that she had just stayed where she'd been before. Almost in love, but not quite. Safe from his wrath but close to his heart.

But kissing him had been the right thing to do. She had proved it was true love -which only made it hurt worse, really- but she had also proved that any curse can be broken. And that look after she'd kissed him, how his eyes had flickered to look more human than ever before; and the gold skin had rushed from his face for a moment. But Belle remembered his voice the most. How the all the darkness had leaked out and he became that uncertain, timid man who wasn't quite sure what to do with a girl in his arms.  
And she longed for that man more than anything, because that was the part of him she'd fallen most in love with.

_"No one can ever, ever love me!" _

That wasn't true. Because Belle certainly did, and she was sure that lost son did too. If only she could have made him see that before he'd thrown her from his life forever.

Belle stumbled through the underbrush, trying not to glance back at the Dark Castle. But she did anyway. She couldn't see him lurking behind its walls, but she could feel him there.

Instead of crying for her loss, however, Belle ran through all the things she loved about him in her mind. She loved the quirky man with the strange sense of humour who spun at his spinning wheel all day. She loved the hesitant man who shot her odd looks like he couldn't be sure what he wanted, or what to do with her. She loved the poor, haunted man that tried to forget his troubles and his past. She loved the sweet man who'd brought her a rose, and presented it to her with such an adorable flourish she couldn't fight a smile. Belle even loved the coward.

Even though he'd been the one to send her away.

It was a little ironic, she supposed, for her to fall in love with a coward. It was ironic in general, though, that underneath all his thick skin, the most powerful man alive was gutless. The man most countries had a right to fear.

Since she'd gotten to know him, Belle had never been scared. As soon as he'd moved her from the dungeon, and she learned to tell when he was joking, Belle began to enjoy his company. But it wasn't until after the kiss that she'd felt scared of him.

Belle's foot hooked around the root that crossed her path. She'd been too caught up in Rumplestiltskin to notice it. But it sent her sprawling anyway, and the palms of her hands were clawed up by thorns.

Thorns...

Belle's eyes went to the lurking castle once more. To the man with the empty heart that willed her away, leaving her empty-handed. He had nothing but an empty heart and a chipped cup, but she had nothing at all. Her heart was broken so small she couldn't carry the pieces. They slipped through her fingers, leaving her empty handed again.

-•-

Belle needed somewhere to stay. Somewhere safe.

Sometimes she wondered why the Queen had been so insistent she kissed Rumplestiltskin. Then again he had mentioned his power. Perhaps it had something to do with that.

Either way, Belle needed somewhere to go. She couldn't go back to her kingdom, and she was certain that any one of the others could hold the strange Queen. And she couldn't go back to Rumplestiltskin.

Belle had not taken to the idea of living in the woods, either. Somewhere she could slip away and become insignificant seemed more perfect than imaginable. A place where she could hear people's stories.

That was how she ended up in the dwarf mines.

-•-

"I don't know. I can't eat. I can't sleep. I don't feel at all myself." A pause. "Maybe I should get Doc to take a look at me."

Oh no. Belle was all too familiar with what the man was talking about. Love was everywhere, no matter the season. It made her feel even more alone with her memories. And yet True Love, even if she herself couldn't have it, made her bloom with hopeful happiness.

"...Dwarves don't get sick. It must be in your head."

"It's not in his head, it's in his heart." Her new companion turned, looking baffled. Belle tried to smile, but her scars were still too recent for her to succeed. Absently, she wondered who would serve him tea now that she was gone. He'd be far too busy with his spinning to do it himself. "You're in love."

The two dwarves stared at her for a long moment before the second one spoke.

"Well that's impossible. Dwarves can't fall in love." He pushed her observation away without the slightest hesitation or thought.

Belle tried for that smile again. Forgetting her own trials, she met the eyes of the lovesick dwarf. "Trust me. I know love, and you're in it."_ If only he doesn't end up like me,_ she prayed. _Please don't let him __end up like me. _

"What's it like?" The expression on his face reminded her of a new flower, budding and curious.

Belle's smile came through. "It's the most wonderful and amazing thing in the world." Memories bubbled in her chest, of roses and gold straw and curtains and long conversations on tables. And a kiss. "Love is hope. It fuels our dreams. And if you're in it, you need to enjoy it." It helped a little, to spill her thoughts to this stranger. This stranger who needed her help. No matter how her happy ending had ended, she was determined to make sure he at least got that chance with love. "Because love doesn't always last forever."

She glanced back at her table, trying to keep her expression blank. If only Rumplestiltskin has believed in happiness. If only. If, if, if, if.

"If love's so great then why do I feel so bad right now?"

Belle met his innocent eyes. "You need to be with the person you love." She herself needed it so bad that it felt like someone had carved a hole in her chest. Belle imagined Rumplestiltskin would be at his wheel now, alone with its comforting, ominous creaks. She could almost lose herself in a memory, or an imaginary land where they could be together.

"But how do I know she feels the same way? All she talked about was going to see some fireflies. Not loving me." The dwarf grumbled. He sounded almost spiteful on the last word, like he couldn't believe that she could love him back.

_You could have had happiness if you just believed that someone could want you.  
_  
"What-what did she tell you about these fireflies?" Belle's attention was entirely back on the dwarf now. She was almost positive of this girl's intention.

"That she was gonna go see them on the hilltop tonight. That she heard they were the most beautiful sight in all the land."

Belle couldn't suppress a giggle at the density this dwarf carried.

"What?" He sounded somewhere between indignant and baffled.

"She wasn't telling you about the fireflies, she was inviting you to go be with her." Belle's heart fluttered limply. It was going a little numb again, like when she thought about love too much. It was protecting her. Because she'd had lobe once, and it wasn't coming back.

The dwarf looked so joyous it warmed every tip of her being. "You think so?"

Her eyes drifted to the table again. "I've had my heart broken enough," More than enough. So small and splintered it couldn't be put back together again. "To know when somebody's reaching out." There was that lump in her throat, the one that meant she was about to cry. But the dwarf looked so pleased. Belle couldn't cry now.

"Now go, find your love." She insisted. He was oh-so close. He couldn't lose it now. Not like she had. "Find your hope. Find your dreams." Her own hopes and dreams still swirled through her. If only he had reached out for her.

Belle offered the dwarf one last smile. She was determined to help him find his love. Determined to help anyone who needed her.

_Please don't let him end up like me._ She prayed again. _Please let them be happy. _

Please don't leave them empty-handed.

**A/N: The part with Grumpy was really hard to write actually. Emily de Ravin is such a stunning actress that you can see all the heartbreak and pain amazingly well, but it's hard to put thought to it. Overall I'm happy with it, especially the part where she's running from Rumplestiltskin. Especially because I think that the title fits incredibly because she started out wealthy, then found love, then left with nothing. To me, it seems to capture how she feels at that moment perfectly.**


	6. Empty Glass

**A/N: I was torn between two ideas here, so I decided to do both! And one is less angsty!Something a little different...**

-•—•-

Leroy downed the drink, staring into the pit of the glass like it was the Pit of Despair. It felt like it was.

"Another one," He growls, and Ruby pauses her table cleaning to glance up. It's late, and Granny's is all but empty. He's alone. Just the way Leroy likes it.

Ruby brings him another one over, and he gulps it down as quickly as the last. There's a long line of empty glasses on the table, from a long night of drinking. Leroy doesn't know why he drinks so much. It dulls the pain, but he doesn't know where the pain is from.

He does like drinking though, it makes the others avoid him, or at least ignore him. And the people here are much too frivolous and selfish and generally irksome for his liking. Leroy doesn't like people. He only wants to be alone.

Not quite. There is one person he wants to be with.

Astrid.

But she's a nun. He can never ever have her. Besides, who would ever want to be with the town drunk?

Not a nun.

So Leroy drinks some more, because Astrid is the only pain he can recognize. And recognizable pain is much easier to suppress. Though he feels a bit better that he's pinned his agony down to something, there's still a hole. A gap that no amount if drinking seems to restrain.

But Leroy tries anyway.

And he spends another night, the eight in a row, at the bar in Granny's with a row of empty glasses.

-•-—-•-

The shoes.

Ella stared at them, tilting her head one way then the other to examine them. In all the excitement of moving into the castle she'd almost forgotten about them. But there they sat, the glass shoes.

"Glass."

"Every story needs a memorable detail."

Except he'd pronounced 'detail' as 'dee-tael', like it was something you do to a poor little animal. And he had the oddest quirk to his voice. Ella was positive that wasn't natural. But she hated, hated, hated her life and she had to get out. If she had to be stuck there...a maid...forever. Well, Ella couldn't stand it much longer than the three seconds it took to sign that contract.

It had seemed like so long ago. But she remembered every last 'dee-tael', down to the last wrinkle on his nose as he grinned impishly. Ella remembered those strange eyes, almost cat-like. She remembered that pause, the impish look he gave before he flicked his wrist and made her stunning.

Ella picked up one of the shoes, turning it over in her hands. Why had he picked glass, of all things? It certainly was memorable, but...glass? She wouldn't have thought of it. Emeralds, perhaps. Or rubies. Feathers or china or silver. Glass had never crossed her mind until she put them on her feet.

The shoes were surprisingly comfortable, like they'd been lined with clouds or pillows. And they did look splendid on her feet. Ella had spun and spun in them when she thought no one was looking, and twirled on the dance floor in them when they were.

The only thing bothering Ella now was his price. He'd said she'd find a way to pay him. That eventually she'd have something. Jewels, Ella thought, from the castle. That's what any normal person would want. But he had been anything but.

Still, Ella thought, as she turned the glass heel over in her hands, it had to be something she could give. And a man who would kill her Fairy Godmother because magic was dangerous certainly wouldn't put his life on the line by coming to the castle. She should be safe. But she still owed him.

Ella held them for a moment mire, admiring their beauty and vulnerability. She wouldn't have to drop them very hard for them to break.

Ella delicately placed the shoes back on the shelf. He didn't matter now.

Her Prince was waiting.


	7. Empty Space

"I have a Council meeting."

That must be the first one since Sheriff Graham died. Because she killed him.

It made Henry ball his hands in frustration that Emma didn't believe him. He was patient, but time was running short. The Fairy Tale characters couldn't wait much longer, what if they never remembered at all? Graham had made Henry so hopeful. He'd remembered, why couldn't anybody else?

So Henry was all alone, the only believer.

And then he met August.

Mysterious August, who somehow rolled into Storybrooke on a motorcycle, which should have been impossible. But he believed, and that was enough for Henry.

Then August said he was going to help Emma believe, that he'd came here to do just that. Henry swore it couldn't get any better. Mary Margaret was free, Emma was still Sheriff, and August would help him.

That part with Mr. Gold didn't make sense, though. Almost no one ever messed with Mr. Gold and those who did never ever got away with it. Henry knew about that man that Mr. Gold had beaten. Adults didn't like to tell him things, but he still found out. They talked like he was just empty space.

Before he found Emma, the book was all he had. Girls like Paige said hi to him, sometimes, but other than that he was all alone. Just him and the pages of fairy tales that were actually true. But there were gaps in the book, and he'd ripped put the last few pages. It felt like all the gaps, all the empty spaces, were screaming at him, crying for his help.

But Henry couldn't help. He could make Emma believe, and fix the curse, but he couldn't do it on his own. And the empty spaces pleaded with him, bargained, threatened, begged. But Henry couldn't fill up the gaps.

After all, empty space can't fill empty spaces.


	8. Empty Places

**A/N: I really like this one, actually. It was a mystery, because all I knew was that it would be called Empty Places, have Jefferson, and talk about the realms the hat offers. I also have an affinity for mad people so...**

My current obsession (besides of course Rumbelle and this show, but I'll probably still love those 10 years from now) is the song Echo by Jason Walker, so if some lyrics pop up in here somewhere, that's why.

-•—$-6•3-—-~%7—€:£•¥ 

Jefferson is trapped.

He's stuck in Wonderland. Then he's stuck in a house in another world, without magic. He's stuck inside his own head. No matter what he does he's always trapped.

Currently he's sitting in a house with four dozen empty rooms. He's remembering the room, the room the hat would take him to. The room with two dozen doors to a dozen different worlds. Worlds with magic and without. Worlds much like the one he's in now, empty of all magic but craving it like Grace's rabbit craved carrots. Only more desperately, more needingly. A need with no conscience or reason, just incredible lust for something it must have.

The worlds each have something different, something no other can offer. They all have something he can eat, but he wouldn't dare to. They each have a monarch to control the realm; some are good, some are greedy, some are weak and some are selfish. They all have something he might want.

But none have what he truly wants.

She's gone, she's dead, she's an empty box in the ground and a place at his mantle, she's nothing but a hole in his heart. She left her mark in his old world and it's fading fast, fading like a crumbling ledge, like a flower that only blooms in Spring.

Here it doesn't even exist.

Except in his memory.

Here it's much worse, though, because here he doesn't have Grace either. All Jefferson has is his own twisted head and an empty house full of hats, and empty of magic.

He wishes she was here. He wishes with every cell of his being. He craves it like Storybrooke craves magic. Like rabbits crave carrots.

Going mad was hard. It was dark and twisting and repetitive. He'd felt like he was falling down the same hole a million times over. He had felt like he was standing on a ledge, right on the edge, screaming his own name over and over like a fool at the top of his lungs. Madness was like falling into the same trap a million times over, knowing it was there, but unable to get out or go a different way. It felt like making thirty million empty hats.

Every time Jefferson felt like he was getting better he fell down the same hole. He screamed his name again and then he hurdled from the edge. He fell into the trap again. He made another hat.

It was a never-ending cycle.

Jefferson hated it.

He missed Grace, and he missed her. It was all lost for a stupid mistake, which seemed to be the way of this world. His world, Wonderland, Eureta, and this new world. One single mistake, one bad decision, and it all came tumbling down like carefully built up sanity.

And no one can fix it. Not easily, anyway.

He wants her back. But everyone who's ever felt magic knows you can't bring back the dead. Jefferson wishes he could though. Wishes so hard his heart might break. He's on a raft in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a hurricane.

_I wish you could come and save me._ He thinks. He's wished on so many stars his telescope is dizzy with them. _I wish you'd try and chase the crazy right out of my head. _

If anyone can dispel the madness, it's her.

But he can't find her anywhere. He wishes she were in another world somewhere. Even in the most perilous of worlds he would go after her. He would brave six hundred and twelve demons, cross precarious bridges, run through the fires of every hell the hat has to offer. But it's still not enough.

His world was empty without her. This world was empty without her. Every world the hat provided was empty.

And they always would be.


	9. Empty Promise

**A/N: I've been dying to write this since The Return. I get it now. I get why he sent Belle away, and why he needed the wand, everything! So I really, really love this chapter. A little more than Empty Handed, maybe. **

•-—-•-—-•

He's tried. He really has.

Rumplestiltskin doesn't want to fall in love. Love was dangerous. Besides, he'd made his promise. He loved Bae, and Bae was gone. He'd sworn that he would do anything in his power and beyond to get him back. That he would love nothing else.

And still he's found himself falling. Falling for Belle, who seemed to understand him, somehow; who learned to snicker at his jokes, jokes that only made others tremble more; Belle who fascinated and disturbed him all at once with the feelings she developed.

And so he sent her away. Made her leave in the hopes she'd never come back again. Or at least until he made his curse.

Rumplestiltskin had gone up to his tower, where he practised spells and alchemy. Where he bottled up every potion and emotion that no one else could. But rather than work on the curse —the curse he'd sworn to devote his life to— Runplestiltskin found himself staring out the window. Waiting. For Belle, even though he'd sworn she would leave and he'd never think about her again.

And then he saw her. Despite his better intentions his heart raised so high he couldn't reach it. Rumplestiltskin darted down the stairs and back to his spinning wheel, so she wouldn't know he'd been waiting. He pretended to be surprised when she flung open the doors.

"Oh you're back already!" Originally he hadn't planned for her to be back at all. "Good! Good thing! I'm uh...I'm nearly out of straw." Rumplestiltskin cursed his fumbled words. He could change the tide of a war with a few careful ones, and here he found himself stumbling.

"Hm." Belle comments with a suppressed smile, striding towards him and putting down the straw. "Come on. You're _happy_that I'm back." She teases. Why does she know him so well?

"I'm not unhappy," He admits. It makes her giggle, which makes him even less unhappy.

"And uh...you promised me a story." Her fingers seem alight with warmth upon his shoulders. Her delicate features and understanding eyes are all he can see.

"Did I?" Rumplestiltskin finds he can't remember. She scrambles his thoughts and fumbles his words, changing his motives with a single smile.

"Mh-hmm," Belle assures him, prising the straw from his grasp. No more spinning. Not a single distraction from her eyes and her lips, from her soft fingertips and the emotions she stirs inside him.

"Oh." Is all he can say. He can't focus at all.

"Tell me about your son."

Bae would like her, he decides. Bae would welcome Belle into their little family without question. Funny how they're both so brave when he's such a coward.

But Bae isn't here, Rumplestiltskin reminds himself. Bae is gone. Sucked into a vortex where he was too cowardly to follow, where he'd turn it all around if given the chance. "Uh...I lost him. There's nothing more to tell really." Not without causing a hundred more scars fresh atop the wounds Bae left behind.

"And since then, you've loved no one and no one has loved you?"

_"I will love nothing else."_How does she know him so well? How can her eyes hold so much understanding and sympathy?

He doesn't get her. Rumplestiltskin has predicted a million things, saw everything coming, but he never knows what goes on with her. He doesn't understand what goes on in her head, or how she can be so...perfect. He never knows where he stands and it's thrilling and terrifying all at once.

"Why did you come back?" He whispers. She's making him suspicious, and he asks the question like it will answer every enquiry he's ever had with her. It's dangerous, he knows, how close they are. He's never supposed to love anything ever again.

"I wasn't going to." Belle admits. It's like she's taken the dagger to his chest. But yet she's here. "But then something changed my mind."

And Rumplestiltskin's heart stops in his chest. He can't breathe, can't think, can't know anything but her. Because she's leaning towards him, with those lips he's longed for and that heart he desires.

Belle tastes like sunlight. She tastes like every dark thought he's ever had. She tastes like honey and wine and all he wants is her.

"Oh." Something is stirring inside him. Shifting. All he can seem to remember is the sunlight on her lips. "What's happening?"

"Kiss me again, it's working!" Belle is giving him this great smile and she strokes his hair, but Rumplestiltskin's thoughts are still slow.

"What is?" He feels vulnerable, every part of him. It's a dreaded feeling, and the coward inside him almost wants to hide. But there's a much bigger part of him that only wants to kiss her again, to kiss her forever.

"Any curse can be broken!" Belle looks so indescribably happy, and he's not sure why. He still feels like he's part asleep, his thoughts are still sluggish. Then his mind catches up to him all in a rush.

"Who told you that?" He demands, shoving away from her sunlight touch. It's the word curse that gets him. It's his promise. "Who knows that?" His power is the only thing he has. And he needs it. To save Bae. Bae whom he's forgotten all about the heartbeat he touched her lips.

"I-I-I don't know, she, uh...she-she," Belle stutters, trying. But she's seen the monster. And she's scared.

Rumplestiltskin examines his hands in utter terror. Human flesh. "'She.'" He repeats. His feet are moving to the mirror as quickly as his thoughts._ "You think you're uglier than you are, that's why you cover all the mirrors up."_That's not it at all.

"You...evil...soul." All that's in him is rage. Rage, red and black, so massive that it can not be contained in one person. "This was you." He growls. "You turned her against me! You think you can make me weak? You think you can defeat me?" Rage is all he knows, and terror. The Queen has no name in this moment. She's taking Belle too. With the last hope for his son.

"Who are you talking to?"

"The Queen!" Rumplestiltskin crows. "Your friend the Queen. How did she get to you?" He bares his teeth.

"The-the Queen? I don't-"

"I knew this was a trick." _I know everything._ "I knew you could never care for me." _No one could ever care for me. I'm a monster._"Oh yeah, you're working for her. Or is this all you?" His fingers go to Belle, accusingly. "Is this you being the hero and killing the beast?"

"It was working-"

Rage. "Shut up!"

"This means it's true love!"

"Shut the hell up!" Rage consumes him, red and black. It licks at the castle walls and rolls across the land and the whole world can't contain it.

"Why won't you believe me?" Even her pained expression can not cut through his fury.

"Because no one -no one- could ever, ever love me!" She's flinching. He's hurting her. His anger is too thick for him to notice. Rumplestiltskin throws her back to her cage, locks her in, so she can never see the light of his heart again.

He'd promised. He swore he wouldn't love anything but the curse, because the one thing he'd truly loved had been ripped from him. Because of the Blue Fairy, Ruel Gorum. Because of his own cowardice.

No one is ever allowed to love him again, because he might feel obligated to love them back. Because he's a coward and can't offer anything but more empty promises.

Except Rumplestiltskin loves Belle already. But he can't keep her. If she stays he'll be battling temptation. Every day he might risk it all to kiss her. He needs his power. He's killed fairies for their wands and bottled up emotions. He has captured frogs who are really princes, gathered wizards' hats and magic chalices.

Rage is hard to contain. So instead he takes some sort of stick and unleashes his rage onto the cabinet, smashing glass and wood alike without mercy. It doesn't end his fury. The tea set is next. He smashes and breaks until he comes across the chipped cup, and nothing can make him destroy it.

"So," She's strong as always. Even when she's locked in with a beast. Brave enough to cut right to the point, irregardless of whatever fear his planned punishments may bring. "What are you going to do to me?"

"Go." Is all he can say. But Rumplestiltskin can pack enough false loathing into one word to make her want to leave. Instead she gazes up at him. He turns his back, so he doesn't have to have his facade crumble.

"Go?"

"I don't want you anymore, dearie."

And Belle, strong as always, gathers up her pride and storms off. But he hears her footsteps stop and he hears her turn and he has to ignore his thudding heart.

"You know, you were freeing yourself." The only word to describe her now is fierce. "You could've had happiness if you _just believed_that someone could want you. But you couldn't take the chance." No one can want him.

"That's a lie." He tells her, keeping his expression blank and a little disdainful. Rumplestiltskin can't take any more chances. He's found his way to end the curse of being the Dark One. But the chances of losing his needed power are far too great.

"You're a coward, Rumplestiltskin."

Coward. _"You Coward! You promised!"_He is a coward. He's a coward who's already broken too many promises. Coward. Coward. Coward. No many how many times it's used it still cuts deeper and sloppier than any knife. The very word seems to burn all his skin off. The only two people he loved have used it against him. Their final words. Because of cowardice and empty promises, the only two people he loved were lost from him forever.

"And no matter how thick you make your skin, that doesn't change." Her eyes seemed to enough fierceness and anger to overwhelm his rage.

"I'm not a coward, dearie." _I am._"It's quite simple, really. My power...means more to me...than you." Because his power was for his son and he needed more and he'd promised. Bae came first and Belle had to come second. How could he choose between the only two people he loved?

"No. No it doesn't." Could she really see through him that easily? "You just don't think I can love you." Of course that was true to. No one could love him anyway. "Now you've made your choice. And you're going to regret it. Forever. And all you'll have...is an empty heart...and a chipped cup." Then she was a whirl of blue skirts and anger as she stormed out. And he was left alone. Forever. With an empty heart and a hundred empty promises...


	10. Empty Cabin

**A/N: Funny, so far absolutely none of these have gone quite in the direction I originally wanted.**

I pretty much collect phrases that I use as a prompt (and the chapter title) for myself, and base it off that. I was watching 7:15 A.M. when I came up with this one. It was going to be something in Mary Margaret's point of view.

Instead, I made this:

[= ]

The cabin has seen many things.

It has watched birds hatch, and squirrels bicker, and rain fall upon the lake and flood it. While that's all fine with the cabin, it prefers watching human endeavours.

It has seen the man —the man who owns it: the one they call Mr. Gold, although he seems to have another name— bury a shiny little knife. The cabin doesn't know what the knife is for. But the cabin likes to watch. The bearded man came soon after, and saw Mr. Gold. The bearded man was looking for a wolf. Cabin has never seen a wolf, they don't belong here.

Mr. Gold comes by the cabin a lot. There was that other time, when he showed a stubbly man the pretty little knife. There were hugs and then fighting and threats, and it was all very confusing for the cabin. The cabin didn't like to have to figure out human intentions. It just liked to watch.

People have entered the cabin before. Not many. They all run rampant with emotions it knows the names for, but has never felt. Regret and longing and hatred and rage roll across the cabin's floor. First were the two, in the middle of a storm. Cabin has seen many a storm but none quite like this one.

The two slide into the cabin, sopping wet, the rain from them soaking its floors just as well as their regret. Cabin wants to recoil from it, to only watch: to not have emotions poking at its observance.

The man kindles a fire, the woman shivers, and the bird sits quietly.

"Okay. Let's get you dry."

"Whose cabin is this?" The girl ponders. Even her voice shudders. The cabin knows who owns it. The cabin has seen many things. "Are you sure it's okay for us to be in here?" The girl jerks her head in the man's direction. It probably isn't. Mr. Gold didn't say they could come in.

"Well, you're roommates with the Sheriff, so I doubt she'll arrest us for breaking and entering." The man grins. Is he invincible? The cabin wonders. He walks as if he thinks so. "Here." The man wraps a thick blanket around the woman's shoulders, which she shrugs off without giving him a single glance. "Hey, I'm just trying to help."

She nods. Her gaze never touches him. The cabin wants to cringe away from their too high emotions, from the walls they shove against each other.

"What's going on with you today?" The man's eyes never leave her, whereas her's never go to him.

"What's going on? What's going on is I still have feelings for you."

"What?"

"Why do you think I go to Granny's every morning at seven fifteen?" Her face finally turns to him. "It's to see you." The girl's voice is thick with emotion. Her eyes are watery. "I don't know why, because it just makes me miserable. Because every time I see you it just reminds me that you chose Kathryn instead of me." Her gaze now leaves him. Her voice is so thick and layered with all those disgruntling emotions that cabin could sit upon it.

"And that's why I didn't want you to come to the woods with me," She continues. "Because being around you is too," She's shaking her head. It's been shaking for a while now. "It's too painful."

The man makes a noise the cabin can't define: half sigh-half chuckle.

"You think this is funny?"

"No, it's just...the reason I go to Granny's every morning at seven fifteen..." She keeps shaking her head. The cabin doesn't know why. She won't look at the man again, even though he's looking at her. "It's to see you." Her head snaps in his direction. He chuckles again and they stare at each other, emotions painted in their faces so vividly it makes the cabin dizzy.

And then they lean into each other, and they almost kiss, when the woman jerks away.

"How can you do this?" She mutters. Will her tone ever thin?

"What are you talking about?"

"David, I know." She stares at him, angry.

"You know what?"

"About Kathryn."

"What about Kathryn?" He is so confused. Anyone could see it.

"That she thinks she's pregnant." The woman confesses, the words spilling out in a rush. The cabin is enjoying its observation, if only they could dial down their emotions.

"What?" He is shocked. He's been smacked off a rooftop in surprise. There is a moment of silence.

"You didn't know..."

"No." The man sputters.

"And you two aren't trying..."

"Not as far as I know." The air is so solid between then that the cabin almost wants to leave. To stop watching. "Mary Margaret you have to believe me, I—"

"Shh." The rain has stopped. They should have noticed. "The rain's stopped. I need to get her out!" The girl runs for the bird.

"Mary Margaret..." The man turns to watch her. Then the two dart outside and the cabin's watching time is over.

[ #]

"Walk."

The cabin perks up. Mr. Gold doesn't come by often. And there's a man with him. And Mr. Gold has a gun.

The cabin is listening very intently now.

Strange man is ushered inside, bound up. He is sat in a chair and Mr. Gold towers over him, obvious rage twisting at his features. Of all the emotions, the cabin finds rage the most interesting. It is a little strange to see on Mr. Gold, who usually so...placid. But the cabin can always feel all the emotions, and there is a lot of anger and darkness inside Mr. Gold. And something else is buried there too. Something that the cabin thinks is love.

"I can explain." The man says, bearing his tied hands before him like he's begging for forgiveness. Or shielding himself from a death blow of hatred.

"Well that is...fascinating," Mr. Gold says with his usual charm, only now it seems even colder. He places the gun on the table and pulls up a chair, which he sits on backwards. The cabin is quite entertained now. "Truly...fascinating." Mr. Gold presses the end of his cane to the man's neck. The man makes a faint, chocking gurgle.

"You can breathe in a second. And you're going to give me two sentences. The first, will tell me where it is. The second is gonna tell me who told you to take it. Do you understand the rules?" Mr. Gold's words are like rocks pounding soft flesh. The cabin is glad it's made of wood.

The man makes a strange sound in response.

"Yes?" Mr. Gold growls. The man makes another noise of assent. "Good." Mr. Gold removes his cane. "Let's begin." He waits as the man breathes.

"I needed that van."

"A-ca-tak-tak-ta!" Mr. Gold hisses. It's an inhuman response, and it makes the cabin think that there's something not quite human living inside Mr. Gold's body. "Now you see, that was not a very good first sentence!" Mr. Gold's cane comes up, rage fuelling the blow that smacks the man so hard his ribs might bruise and crack.

"Gold!" The man wails. "Listen..." He starts, in his mumbly, soft voice.

"Tell me where it is!" Mr. Gold hits him with the cane again.

"Stop!" The man cowers in his seat.

"Tell me where it is!" Mr. Gold's cane cracks the man again.

"No, stop!" Mr. Gold's cane wavers, but his face is still twisted with fury and hate. The man is practically sobbing. "It wasn't my fault."

"My fault? What are you talking about 'my fault'?" Mr. Gold sounds like he's not quite right in the head. His eyes are a little distant, as if he's sharing his body with someone else. Someone that reminds the cabin of a past life that was part Mr. Gold and part something else. "You shut her out. You had her love and you shut her out!" On the past word, the cane meets flesh with a sickening smack. The cabin has always liked the word sickening.

"She's gone." Mr. Gold continues, voice still hard and eyes slightly delusional. "She's gone forever. She's not coming back." There's a dangerous hiss to his voice, like fire and water fizzling together. "You are her father!" Mr. Gold keeps hitting, hitting, hitting the man with enough force to make the cabin's wooden walls cringe.

"It's your fault!" Smack. "It's your fault!" This time, as the cane came down, it was caught by a blonde woman's agile hands. Sheriff Swan.

"Stop it."

Mr. Gold was tugged outside and eventually handcuffed. The man was put in an ambulance. The cabin was very disappointed that it hadn't heard a word they'd said. It could never hear very well when they were that far.

Like the next time Mr. Gold came. A strange stubbly man joined him. They embraced and Mr. Gold looked as if he were about to cry. But then he took his knife back and aimed it at his companion's throat.

Maybe he wasn't a lost loved one after all.

[ /]

Something was changing. The cabin could tell. Something deep and ancient and powerful was creeping into this world and it didn't belong.

But then Mr. Gold was coming towards him with a girl. He'd never brought a girl before. So the cabin sat back and waited, wondering if she'd be killed, beaten, or kissed.

Watching was the only way to know what fate would befall her.


	11. Empty Poison

**A/N: Originally I was going to find a really awesome Grimm fairy tale involving poison to write about. Guess what? There aren't any.**

Did you know that any variation of the name Abigail means 'God Is Joy' and any variation of the name Kathryn means 'holy', 'blessed' or 'pure'? Just trying to decipher how the Curse picked their names ;)

I didn't actually check these quotes, just to warn you. So if they're wrongish...sorry. 

••••••••¥••••••••

_"Because I don't love you." _

Is saying that really a regret? She did it to save his life, after all. The same is true for biting that poisoned apple.

_"I'll think of something else." _

But that dust had saved his life too. Just because she had not actually used it on the Queen didn't mean it wasn't worth something.

_"You've got a lot of anger there, Snow."  
_  
And not enough love. Just enough room for it. Sometimes she thinks her rage is even greater than the Queen's. Sometimes she wishes she didn't hold a grudge so well.

The time for wishing is long over.

_"Drink it in good health...Snow White."_

The potion that made her forget Charming. That one had not been to protect him in any way. That one was a true regret.

After all, she should know better than to make deals with Rumplestiltskin.

She should know better than to make deals with anyone.

_"I'll kill him."_ That was a deal. A deal with an evil King who made a throne out of lies. She'd lost Charming then, and she'd almost died, and she'd been captured. But she met Grumpy. That was a good thing.

Her dreams twisted immediately, showing her visions of Grumpy gutted and flayed, with a dwarf axe through his chest or a spear in his stomach. His blood pouring across flagstones like rivers and his head on a stick. The home where she and the dwarves lived flattened and burned, blood smeared on the leftover wood.

_"The next time you see the object of your grief, you won't even remember who he is." _That was one of her largest regrets. She'd ripped Charming from her, from that mangled heart (caused by her last deal, mind you), and opened up space for darkness. Space the darkness gladly took, clawing and infecting until no one recognized her anymore. Until there was space for nothing but her rage for the Queen, and for her heart of darkness.

But he had saved her. He would always save her.

Her dream screeched, rearing its ugly head. It showed Charming being eaten by a dragon, and dragged into a river by a ruthless siren. A siren with her face.

_"This is really happening." _The dream whispered, twisting into her head an image of James in a stockade contraption, the blade about to be dropped to skewer his head. The dream sat contentedly as she thrashed, trying to escape. But she couldn't.

The blade was falling his head was going to get chopped off. Snow White was forced to watch as his blood spattered and leaked on the cobblestones. She had to feel her heart snap and fracture.

The dream rewinded the scene (gleefully, she was sure). But this time the blade turned to water a heartbeat before James was hacked open. She'd be so happy if she didn't suspect what came next.

The Queen. Regina. Stepmother. Enemy. She waltzes across, deals and lies and power sliding off her tongue. And she takes Charming.

_"You want to see the whole thing?"_ Her dream whispers, black mist coiling to stroke her cheek._ "His whole damned fate?" _

She wants to scream no. She can't see him tortured anymore.

So _of course_ the dream shows her everything.

And Snow's at the part where black knights are dragging him out, cackling about how they'll chop off his head. They drag him through the halls. And of course Charming fights, and he somehow escapes, and his mind is screaming her name. But then he rounds a corner. There's a knight, then one behind him, with an arrow aimed straight at him. The bowstring releases with a twang.

The dream doesn't show her the rest.

It punishes her another way instead. It leaves her out in a storm, throws her off a cliff, drowns her in rivers of blood. At one point she's screaming, but it doesn't matter because she can't make a sound because she's trapped inside her own body.

It's the worst kind of cage.

But suddenly she can breathe, and her eyes flutter open. And she looks up into James's smiling face, and all the dwarves.

She can feel the poison leaking out of her veins.


	12. Empty Box

**A/N: SORRY FOR THE HIATUS! I guess I just needed a break. Plus, this chapter is crazy long. Clear your schedule for this one, guys.**

**I think it's weird that it doesn't seem like anyone's written a backstory for The Queen Of Hearts. I thought she deserved one, so with a few months and a lot of words, this was produced. This is probably the longest thing I've ever submitted to Fanfiction. If there's mistakes near the end, you'll just have to deal with it. I had to get it up before the actual 'Queen of Hearts' episode, because it's not like I knew that would happen and I didn't want my work to go to waste.**

**I love this chapter. (End rant)**  
QU€€N

The Queen Of Hearts has lost her tarts, and she doesn't know where to find them.

It was only a silly nursery rhyme, she would tell herself, when her days were so bleak the sky in Wonderland turned pale. On the days when the men whispered of Regina, or the Duchess, or all the things she hated. A silly nursery rhyme.

But if you picked it apart, it meant much, much more.

The Queen Of Hearts has lost her marbles; silly, fragile thing. She's on the road to insanity, she can't find her way back again.

She's lost her heart too. They all deserved to have their hearts stolen. Stolen from them and kept in a little box. No sweethearts named Tani for them, oh no.

Just an empty box. A cage.

QU€€N

Cordissa ran her fingers across the ribbons. Satin, made from the thread of silk worms. In every colour imaginable.

She pulled a burgundy one from the box, caressing it between her fingers. Satin and ribbons always made everything better. They could cover up any pain, she was certain of that. But the worst Cordissa had to deal with was being bitten by the creatures in the garden. Fourteen years old and no real challenge.

That was all fine with Cordissa. She liked being safe and warm, like ribbons and fireplaces. Like stone walls decorated in satin, to hide the coldness with colour.

"Cordissa?"

She put the burgundy ribbon back in its place, plucking up a gold one instead and tying it in her hair. It was a boy's voice, probably some royal her mother wanted her to meet. Her mother was always trying to bring them more friends that were as wealthy as they were. Cordissa was also quite sure her mother was trying to marry her off already.

She turned with a bright smile. Surprisingly, it was not a pompous royal, several years her senior, but the handsomest mother could find. Cordissa gasped in pleasant surprise. It was a boy, rather than a man. Fourteen and a half, she supposed. His birthday was in six months. She'd always had a knack for ages.

He had blond and brown hair. It reminded her of straw, which she had never liked, because she hated the way it pricked at her. His eyes were brown, and warmer than she'd ever seen. They looked like chocolate, ready to melt at her instructions. Ready to melt all for her.

He was wearing a blue tunic. His teeth were perfect, which was hard to find. Cordissa had always been particular about teeth. He had a brown beauty mark on the right side of his face, right above his lip. The boy was staring at her earnestly. He smelled like wildflowers. Perhaps he was a merchant for perfumes, or worked in The Garden.

"Y-yes?" Cordissa was surprised. She hated to stutter, but she found faking it brought out the worst in people. She wanted to see this boy's very worst.

"My name is Tanner." He studied her carefully, as if she was a bandersnatch about to charge. He jerked to look around her, saw the box spilling with ribbons. "I...I've come..." Tanner seemed to have trouble getting his thoughts straight. "Well, your mother told me to come. To see you." So he was a royal.

"A-all r-right, Ta-anner." Cordissa winced as she summoned the stutter again. It made her sound like a nervous, twittery thing. That made the drunken men mother wanted her to marry laugh. Stuttering was a way to cripple everyone's chivalric walls. It was how to see what was really inside. "Wha-what did she tell you, exactly?"

"Just...just to see you." He frowned. Was he an amnesiac? "I like your ribbons."

"O-oh, thank you." Cordissa could see her blush in the mirror. It made her seem even more girly and innocent. Dumb as some of the other princesses from far away.

QU€€N

Another royal. Cordissa was royally sick of them. A whole year older and her mother hadn't changed.

"You need a husband." Her mother would insist, in that terribly nasally voice. Cordissa was glad the only thing they had in common were their brunette locks and chin. "Your pretty little face won't last forever."

"Cordissa..." The man said, twirling a piece of her hair in his fingers. She wanted to smack his hand away. So hard he would bleed.

"Y-yes?" She'd forgotten his name already.

The stupid royal's fingers were on her neck again, feather light touches that would inadvertently make any girl —including her— shiver. He presses his lips to her ear. Sure, he is the most handsome man she has ever seen. Yes, he would make a great husband. But no, she is not attracted to him.

Cordissa is attracted to men who are vulnerable. Men who have walls that crumble under her gaze, leaving them weak and unprotected. She loves men who would give her anything, sacrifice anything. Men who are desperate to please her.

"I love you," A voice whispers, tickling her ear and sending a tingling up her spine. "Let me love you. I'll love you forever. You are beautiful." His lips rove across her ear, down her jawline and to her neck. She lets him explore her. She even releases a moan for him. He doesn't love her, obviously. He hardly knows her. But he is handsome, and he could love her, and he would give her anything.

But he is not vulnerable.

This man's walls are papery thin, she knows, but stronger and more unbreakable than most. His walls were happy to let someone know him, but they would not crumble. They would never crumble. He would never be vulnerable for her.

A pair of brown eyes bloom in her mind. They don't belong to this man. This man's eyes are dark as obsidian. The eyes that had melted into sight before her were...like chocolate. Chocolate that was so easy to melt. So easy to make vulnerable.

Cordissa shivered, but not for the man that was holding her now: his arms so tight on her body she might dissolve, and his lips sucking her neck so hard he might draw blood. Her shudders were meant only for those vulnerable chocolate eyes. She wished their owner would run his fingers down her spine.

Tanner.

"It's...not a problem." He stepped towards her, and Cordissa turned to close the box. Suddenly a hand was there, stopping her. A hand with fingers softer than the satin she adored. "These ribbons...they remind me of...my sister." Cordissa found she liked his slow, hesitant way of speaking.

"R-really?" She's tired of stuttering already.

"Yes."

The royal starts sucking on her ear and sliding his fingers along her spine, reminding her that she's not with Tanner. She's with some stupid prince.

"I-I can't do this." Cordissa says, pushing him away. "I'm in love with someone else." Actually, she's only attracted to someone else. Someone she hasn't seen in a year and might never see again. Who was whisked out by her mother the moment he mentioned his sister. She hasn't seen him since.

"What?" The man splutters. His dark eyes are boiling over with something. He's clearly not used to not getting what he wants.

"I don't love you. I can't marry you. I don't even remember your name." Cordissa plucks her ribbon off the floor where he dropped it and ties it back in her hair. Green like leaves. Rebirth.

QU€€N

Running, running, running. Cordissa hates running. It makes her feel like she's being hunted. She's beyond the reach of safe stone walls with fireplaces and ribbons.

The lady said Tanner would be in the next town.

She said he'd wear a green cape with a brown crest with a boar. Cordissa was sure that Tanner wasn't royalty. She didn't care either way, it was just important to know.

QU€€N

Cordissa stumbled into the square. Her knees and cheek were cut and bleeding. Her hair was a mess and her dress and cloak were ripped. Cordissa's ribbon was in danger of falling out.

"Tanner?" She called, staggering like a weakling. Good. She could find him easily then. His heart was too gold for his own good.

Which was exactly why she liked him.

"Is there a Tanner here?"

The townspeople stood in multi-colored masses. Ugly. All of them. They should cover themselves up. Hide their prying eyes.

She was none of their business.

"Tanner! Do any of you know a Tanner?"

The townspeople remained silent and judging.

"Cordissa?"

Her ears perked at the name, at the voice. Cordissa's eyes peeled the crowd. There. Green cape whirling, brown chocolate eyes. Pushing through the crowd and calling her name.

"Tanner!" She flings herself into his arms, even though the townspeople are watching. It makes her look even weaker, which is useful and dangerous at the same time.

"Cordissa..." His voice hisses her name, every syllable dribbling like honey. The way he says the 'S's makes her shiver. "What are you doing here?"

"I came for you," She whispers. It doesn't matter how fleeting their time was. "I love you."

"What?" Tanner stumbles back, but pulls her into an alley by the hand all the same. The townspeople have wandered off. "You...you hardly know me." His pensive way of speaking is mostly gone now. Cordissa misses it already.

"But I haven't stopped thinking about you." She smiles. His chocolate eyes drip with just enough longing to let her know he feels the same.

"Your...your stutter..." He says finally. Cordissa's smile curves delicately downward. His eyes aren't so filled with lust anymore.

"Never had it." She whispers.

QU€€N

Tanner leads her to a rickety house. Like all the others, it towers much higher than should be allowed. It reminds her of a dingy wooden castle.

She can't help staring at him. He's gotten much more attractive. His jawline is stronger, his hair darker. But Tanner's eyes are as jumbled and soft as always. Cordissa's eyes follow the line of muscles under his billowing green cape. His posture is firmer too. Finally, her eyes rest on his birthmark.

"I love you," Cordissa says again, still smiling, as he pulls her inside.

Tanner looks up sharply. "You don't know that."

"Yes, I do." Cordissa reaches a hand to his face and he allows her fingers to trace his jawline. But his eyes are closed and he's tense beneath her fingertips. His hand grips hers too tightly.

"Stop...saying that."

Cordissa frowns. "You're not the Tanner I remember."

"And you're not the Cordissa I remember." He says bitterly, dropping her hand. He must still be angry about the stutter. "Either you changed, or I never really knew you at all." His brown eyes rip away from her, and she feels like his gaze took away a piece of her heart.

"But I love you." She's become addicted to saying that. Addicted to his eyes and longing for his touch.

Tanner stares at his hands. Finally, he looks up. "How do you know?" His voice is like a whisper. Quiet and paper thin and almost broken.

Cordissa leans towards him until their lips are millimeters apart. "Let me show you," She whispers. Almost against his own will, he closes the gap.

QU€€N

"Don't you get tired of staying here?"

"No," She says with a smile, setting out her baking next to the woolen clothing he's set out.

"Don't...don't you get tired of the others glaring at you?" Tanner's brow is knit in the most adorable way. Unconsciously, she reaches up and runs a hand through his hair.

"You're worth it." She whispers. He smiles, and she slips into the back while he sells.

QU€€N

Tanner twirls her hair around his finger. Cordissa leans into him with a smile. He's so easy to smile around. It's so easy to forget her mother, to forget every self-serving royal she's been with. Cordissa still hasn't figured out why her mother brought Tanner to her. He was a lord's son, but his father died in a war and his mother was sick soon after. The head maid threw him out, pretended he had died of grief. But Tanner still wore the cloak.

"You're gorgeous." Tanner mumbles, his fingers moving down her back. Cordissa loves that word. He doesn't usually call her beautiful, or fair, or simply 'pretty'. Tanner has dozens of incredible words: stunning, gorgeous, unrivaled, angelic, unearthly. "Sometimes I wish I had you all to myself. That no one else could see you."

Cordissa laughs. She's always liked her laugh. High and light and dancing. "Oh?"

"Sometimes I'm scared they'll see how perfect you are and take you away. Steal your looks all for themselves. Sometimes I wish only I could look upon your beauty." One of his hands was twirling her hair while the other stroked her back.

Suddenly, he dropped his hands. "It's stupid." Tanner said, Cordissa turned to see his delicate scowl. "It's...petty."

Cordissa pouted. "It's not. Sometimes I wish I had your heart all to myself."

QU€€N

"Let's run away."

Cordissa looks up. It feels like he's stolen the thought straight from her head and pressed it between his lips.

"Where?" She says. He's supposed to be slightly more logical. But she's wanted to leave these townspeople and their glares. Tanner is the only reason she's still here.

"Anywhere." He grins. "Let's go tomorrow. Let's go north."

Cordissa grins. Anywhere with Tanner is where she wants to be.

QU€€N

"My uncle's castle isn't far from here," Cordissa told him. They'd run out of food and merchandise a long time ago. No one would take them in anyway.

"Are you sure this is a...good idea?"

"No. But it's the best we have. Just because the road there is dangerous doesn't mean it won't be worth it at the end."

QU€€N

"Cordissa."

She whirls at her name. The tone is inflected all wrong, more like a snarl than a call of recognition. Tanner squeezes her hand tighter.

"I see you brought a pet."

Her uncle's castle is so close.

"No. He's my friend." Tanner shoots her a betrayed, hurt look that makes her want to take the words back. But she hasn't even identified who the person is. She can't put Tanner in danger.

The person steps out from the shadows of a pine, and she only notices because his armour flashes like a prism in the sunlight. He grins crookedly, black tunic unwrinkled and dark sword polished to perfection. The Shadow Knight. Her mother's favourite, paid to kill people she doesn't like.

And now her mother's favourite knight has come for her only daughter.

"I see you still remember me. Good. Now what's the name of your lovesick puppy?"

"Tanner," The man in question says quietly. His eyes are dejected, like he's already given up. Why has he already given up?

"Very creative," The Shadow Knight shoots back, sneering. "Was your family in the leather-tanning business, Tanner?"

"No..." Tanner whispers. He's thinking carefully: his cute, pensive way of speaking revealed. Deciding whether or not to say something, probably about his family.

"No." The knight repeats. "Well, it's still a dreadful name."

"Enough s-small ta-alk." Cordissa snarls, but her fake stutter slips through. She's not sure why she finds herself needing it. She already knows how callous this man is. She's seen him at work, seen the merciless twinkle in his brown eyes. Brown like rust and dried blood, not melting chocolate. "Why are you here?"

The Shadow Knight grins. "Your mother sent me." And suddenly every piece fall into place and the knight's sword is in Tanner's chest before she can scream.

And then the knight is gone and the life is fading fast from Tanner's eyes.

"Tanner!" She runs to him, and she knows that even if he lives she will avenge him. But she knows he won't. She's good at figuring out ages. Maybe she's also good at figuring out how old people are when they die. Eight days until his sixteenth birthday.

"Cordissa..." She kneels at his side, trying to see through the tears streaming from both of their eyes. "Be... strong, okay?"

"Y-you—y-you k-know I a-a-am." And for the first time in her life her stutter is real.

"Yeah...I love you." He smiles, a real smile. And his eyes are like melting chocolate —like they've always been— but this time they're melting down until there's nothing left.

"Don't- don't s-say it like it-it's g-g-goodbye." She sobs, and her whole world and her whole life is falling apart around her.

"It..." He pauses, deciding whether or not he should say what she knows he has to. "It is."

And her heart is breaking as his bleeds. And she's crying as his body goes limp beneath her.

And she's wondering if her mother knew when she was born, if she knew this would happen and she knew her name would be a curse. She wonders if her mother knows her heart is smashing, shattering, scattering into a thousand pieces. Cordissa. It really can't be a coincidence that her name means 'heart'.

QU€€N

"Uncle! Uncle! Open up!"

Cordissa's been pounding his door for hours. Tanner's cold body is limp against her. It just doesn't make sense. Why isn't he comforting her? Why are her hands bleeding? Why are his hands cold?

"Who's there?"

Cordissa nearly screams in relief. She recognizes that voice. "Uncle! It's me, Cordissa!"

"Who's that with you?"

First, she wonders where her uncle is and how he can see her. But then Cordissa realizes she's too tired and heartbroken to care. "This is— this was— Ta-anner." And her not-so fake stutter betrays her again.

"I see. What is it you want?"

That's about the point where Cordissa remembers her mother's ramblings on how her uncle is at least half-crazy, driven mad my loneliness and paranoia. But that doesn't matter. She might just be crazy herself, driven mad by betrayal and loss.

"It's a very long story and it's cold out here." Cordissa calls, like it's some sort of secret passcode to get in.

A throaty laugh echoes from the halls inside. "Very well. Enter, Cordissa."

The massive gates —Tanner might have called them majestic or unnaturally enormous or say they were made for giants; but he's not here to say those things, is he?— swing open and then slam shut behind her. Uncle steps from the shadow of a wall with a massive grin: asking her how she likes his castle and saying that he missed her and her stubborn, stuck-up 'finesse'.

Her uncle's castle is rather standard, cold and impressive and huge, made from 'expensive' grey stone. But all his tapestries and banners are green, and the flowers that line shelves and layer the floor are a kind she's never seen before. They look a little like lilies, but Cordissa doesn't think lilies come in the green-blue colour.

"It's very interesting, Uncle." Cordissa says, and then all she can bring herself to do is fall onto the floor and stroke Tanner's hair, like it'll bring him back.

"'Interesting' is good, right?" Her uncle leans over her, his massive grin curling the tips of his dark mustache. Cordissa thinks maybe he really is crazy. "Now come on. We've got lots more to see."

"I think I'd just like to sleep now, Uncle." She sighs, staring at Tanner's blank face.

"Very well. Your chambers are this way." Uncle leads her to a stone room covered with green rugs and tapestries and a green canopy bed. And Cordissa finds herself wishing everything was red, like the rage she's feeling inside or the blood of her still-beating heart.

"Why do you keep lugging that dead boy around everywhere, anyway?"

Cordissa freezes. It's like someone has injected her soul —because her heart is too mangled and broken to feel anymore— with ice. "Because I love him!" She snarls, and frost captures every word. Her uncle looks shocked, and Cordissa recomposes herself. "Loved." She corrects, and she's too tired to sound apologetic.

Her uncle sits down on the bed, jostling the green comforter and patting the space next to him. Reluctantly, Cordissa sits. Not all of her manners are gone. This is his house. She's a guest.

"I get it." He says. And for the first time her Uncle looks calm. Almost broken. He's like the shattered fragments of her heart, all that's left after it was ripped out. "Once upon a time, I loved someone too."

Cordissa stops staring forlornly at the floor and examines his eyes, a pallid blue-green. "What happened to her?"

Uncle met her gaze, eyes darkening. "What happened since the last time I saw you?"

He gave her a look, like she'd get no more information until she gave some. "My mother set me up with a million and one royals. She introduced me to Tanner by accident, and a year later I ran away and found him. We...stayed in a town for a while. But they hated my guts and they kept staring at me, all the time. So we ran. And we were going to stay here for a while but then..." Cordissa choked in a shaky breath. "Then my mother sent the knight to kill him and he..." Died. She's not ready to sat it aloud yet. If she does it'll be true, and if it's true she might go crazy.

"Oh." Uncle runs a hand through his rumpled hair. "Okay." He glances at her hesitantly. "You can stay here as long as you have to."

Cordissa caresses Tanner's hair. His head is on her lap, but it's disgustingly cold. "Thank you. But I'm not staying long." She stares intently into her uncle's pale eyes. She needs someone on her side. "I'm going back to my kingdom. I'm getting revenge on my mother."

QU€€N

Cordissa doesn't sleep well. All she can think of is Tanner's dead body, laying beside her bed. She's terrified she'll roll over and his eyes will be wide open. She's horrified by the thought of those once-beautiful brown eyes staring at her with nothing but death in them. No love, no softness, no concentration, no pity. Not even anger. Just death.

Or maybe anger. Maybe if she looks, his eyes will be black and full of hatred. Maybe his cold, limp fingers will reach for her, tighten around her neck, choke out her air...

Cordissa doesn't breathe. He could hear her. If she moves, something will get her. It's like a childhood nightmare; where the shadows look like people and you're so scared that you hide under your blankets and don't move until morning.

She has to breathe. She's going to suffocate if she doesn't.

Cordissa heaves in the loudest, shakiest breath she's ever taken. Louder and shakier than the one after her first kiss, with some man whose name she can't remember. He was several years older and his eyes were a beautiful green, like the woods at twilight.

Her eyes are squeezed shut. She opens them hesitantly, unfurling her fingers. It's dark, but she can make out the canopy of her bed.

Cordissa rolls over, fingernails digging into her palms. She's imagining a thousand different scenarios of what she might see on the floor.

Tanner's face is pale. He looks like he's sleeping, except that his nose doesn't twitch and the line of his mouth is too hard —like he's in pain. The other dead giveaway is the dark stain across his chest. Dried blood.

She's shaking again. Cordissa is willing to bet that her voice would quiver, too, if she used it.

She can't stand the thought of him on her floor. He's dead. He's a body. No soul, no thoughts, no love, no hate, no voice, no spirit. No heart.

Dead. Empty. Like a rock.

She has to do something. She can't stand another second of him laying there. He needs a grave: with flowers and colour and his favourite quote carved into the headstone— "We're only ever as good as our imagination." Cordissa had no idea where he'd heard it, but he'd say it whenever the townspeople's glares were particularly harsh and the brilliant blue sky was particularly grey.

Tanner deserved a funeral. And she'd make her own dress like he'd taught her to. And she'd find fuchsias for him, because those were his favourite flowers. She didn't care how hard it would be. She'd find a nice bouquet of fuchsias and she'd hold them during the service and then she'd put them on his grave and talk to him like he was alive even though he wasn't.

And then she'd get her revenge.

QU€€N

Cordissa's crying. She can't fake cry. She hardly ever cries.

The fuchsias are shaking in her trembly hands. The leaves are falling off, spiraling down, hitting the ground. Story of her life.

She wants them all to leave. None of them really knew him. They're all staring at her, just like they always have. They have those same judging, resentful eyes. They're still out for blood. And no matter how much Cordissa hurts, the blood will always have to be hers.

She wants to yell 'I'm a princess', but she's exiled. She wants to scream 'off with their heads', but she can't make that call anymore. All she can do is stand over the grave in her dull black dress with her bright red fuchsias and her shiny wet tears.

"I loved you, Tanner." Just breathe in. "I'll always love you." Just breathe out. "You knew me like no one else did. I could tell you anything. You knew all if my fears and you understood all my thoughts. No matter how awful I felt, or how bad my day was, you could always make it better. You knew all the right things to say, and all the things not to say." Breathe in. "You were an incredible person; an enchanting person." Breathe out. "I'm lucky to know you." Breathe, breathe, breathe. "To-to ha-have known you." Breathe. "I love you, Tanner." Stop crying. "I love you so much my heart might explode and my castle might crumble." Tanner used to say that. All the time. Her castle was bigger, and his was empty.

She'd rather have an empty castle than one full of planning and hate.

She'd rather be alone than with her mother.

She'd rather be the last person alive.

She'd rather own the last castle.

"Goodbye," Cordissa whispers, opening her fingers. The flowers spill across his grave. Bright red, like drops of blood. She squeezes her eyes shut, tries to forget.

She can't forget.

"I'll never forget you, Tanner." And then she can't say anything else because she's crying too hard and her Uncle is taking her away. She doesn't want to leave him —which is stupid because he's already left her.

QU€€N

"Goodbye, Uncle."

He jerked his head up from his work. The desktop was coated in pages of his sprawling, intricate scrawl. They had to be plans of some sort, but the writing was too messy to decipher. "You're leaving?"

"I have to," She says, clutching the dagger tighter. "I have to get revenge on my mother. I have to save the Kingdom."

Her uncle sighed, running a hand over his face. "Fine. But my door is always open, Cordissa."

"I know," Cordissa whispers. "Thank you, Uncle." She puts her arms around him hesitantly. "Thank you for putting up with me for two weeks."

He pats her back gently. "I liked having you, Cordissa." Her uncle pulls back gently and smiles. "Even if you were a miserable wreck."

Cordissa tries to laugh, but it stops in her throat. She steps back and pauses. "Did you ever find love again?"

"No," He says honestly. "But you will."

Cordissa manages a smile and hugs him one more time. "Goodbye."

She's fairly certain it'll be the last time she sees him.

QU€€N

There used to be this saying that home is the easiest place in the world to get back too. Her father used to tell her that when she was lost, all she had to do was follow her feet.

Cordissa had never believed that. Her brain was controlling her feet, after all, so her feet then had to be following her brain. And if her feet were following her brain rather than themselves, she couldn't very well follow them either. Therefore, she would be following her brain instead of her feet, and if she couldn't remember which way to go she wouldn't be getting anywhere. The saying, in itself, proved to be false. And Cordissa couldn't follow a false statement, either.

Somehow, following her feet was ridiculously easy. She just walked out the front door of the castle and started walking. Of course, she didn't want to walk by the place where Tanner had been killed, so her brain had some input. But other than that, Cordissa just walked and hoped she was going in the right direction.

She didn't count the days. She slept when she felt like it (which wasn't often) and ate as she walked. Cordissa hardly stopped. She was driven almost solely by vengeance.

She passed through the town where she'd found Tanner. Cordissa could ignore their states, this time. What she couldn't ignore were the constant flashbacks that seemed to hit her at every corner. She remembers her hand in his as he leaned over a cart to look at fabrics. She remembers him showing her a book of recipes and suggesting she sell some baking with the wool. She remembers the townspeople glaring at her and Tanner whispering about how they were only jealous. She'd laughed, right there in the middle of the street. It only made them scowl more, but it made her feel better.

Cordissa kept going. She was sure she was heading south, but for the most part she disregarded daylight and direction.

She travelled through towns that looked vaguely familiar. They were probably towns she'd been in before, looking for Tanner,

It had probably taken a month, but finally she reached it.

The castle she had once called home stood proud and tall, just like it always had. The walls were covered in satin like they always had been, to hide the ugliness that had always been there. Cordissa was fairly certain that the staff would almost be exactly the same, and the garden the same, and the tunnels she'd never bothered to explore as unlit and cobweb-y as always. She was the one who was different.

Cordissa doesn't like ribbons anymore; she can't even remember the last time she'd worn one. She doesn't particularly like fireplaces either. Burgundy now reminded her of dried blood instead of expensive furniture. She is stronger now. She's loved and lost and she won't stand for royals touching her. She won't stand for her mother controlling her life anymore.

She doesn't stutter anymore.

She doesn't trust people automatically; she doesn't test them anymore.

She doesn't give people a chance, but she's safer that way.

Cordissa was stronger, and she was here for revenge.

QU€€N

Cordissa knew for a fact that there was a tunnel somewhere that led from library to outside. If she was lucky, she'd find it right away and it would be a straight passage. Even better, the fireplace would be out. Of course, Cordissa was never very lucky anymore.

She'd never read much, but the library was one of the coziest places in the castle. The floor was completely covered in blue and brown rugs. There was a fireplaces, and lush chocolate brown furniture. The walls were completely covered in bookshelves that his the stone grey walls, and even though the books were always room temperature, they seemed to suck up all the coldness from the stone.

Cordissa often found ribbons, stuck between the pages of books. Half of her collection had been found in the library, and the rest her father brought back for her whenever he went away. Sometimes a servant would give her a strip of satin off of a dress that had to be hemmed. One of those particularly did all of her seeing in the library, so Cordissa figured that before she'd gleaned her obsession with ribbons, the servant had just slipped the slips of satin into books and pretended they were bookmarks. They could have been bookmarks, but Cordissa found they made much better hair ribbons.

She spent a lot of time in the library in the winter. Cordissa found that it was the only time she ever read anything. That particular day she was reading a romance novel rather than the usual adventure story. She couldn't quite remember the reason she'd chosen that story, but it probably had something to do with the royal purple ribbon she'd found pressed between its pages.

Cordissa had curled herself up in her favourite chair and cracked open the pages. The servant wasn't there, so the fire was out and she was awfully cold. After six pages, she couldn't stand the cold anymore. Cordissa crawled into the fireplace in search of matches or a secret fire lever or something. Instead she found the door.

Cordissa had leaned on the back stone wall of the fireplace, and it had cracked open to reveal a passage wide enough for someone to walk through and tall enough that they could stand up straight.

Now, Cordissa had never been a very curious girl. Curiosity always led to danger, and she was very wary of danger. The only adventures she had were one's she'd read in books. She'd rather organize her ribbons than explore. So, rather than climb into the dark and spidery tunnel, she managed to pry the door closed and crawled back into her seat. A few hours passed before a servant showed up to light the fire.

QU€€N

The tunnel was obviously going to be hard to find. No castle would want someone to be able to sneak into their walls.

After hours of fruitless searching and ducking from guards, Cordissa eventually found it.

She'd spotted the Shadow Knight up on a parapet and slipped into a crease between two walls. The moment she pressed herself against the cold stone, a door creaked open. Without hesitation, Cordissa slipped into the passage.

It was so narrow that she had to walk sideways, but she managed to shuffle far enough in that she was left in pitch darkness. Cordissa didn't care if it was a trap. She'd fight her way out if she had to, and then she'd kill her mother. She just had to keep a hand on each wall (not that it was hard) and move forward. Sideways.

The tunnel sloped upward steeply, so that she had to crawl up the passage. The stones were slippery, so it was like climbing up a muddy hill. On the brighter side, at least it was wider now.

Cordissa's hands snapped through cobwebs so many times she lost count. She was conscious of the things crawling over her feet. It was too dark to see what they were, but she had a feeling that the old Cordissa would have been terrified.

Finally, the slope leveled out. The tunnel was too wide to have a hand on each wall, so she ran one along the left wall and stretched the other out in front of her. Her hand smacked into a wall, stubbing all the fingers on her right hand. Cordissa scrambled both hands along the wall, trying to find a crack so she could pry it open. Finally, her long nails caught a crack and she prised the door open.

Cordissa's eyes were met with red. It was brighter than the tunnel, but the light was clearly filtering through a tapestry of some sorts. Even though she was looking at the stitching backwards, Cordissa recognized it.

It was in her room. The tapestry her mother had told her was haunted as a child, that she had never dared touch. Later on, she'd been told there were spider eggs tangled into the weave. Once, Cordissa had found a spider in her bed. She'd assumed it was from the tapestry, and never thought of going anywhere near it again.

Cordissa stepped out from behind the tapestry, leaving the tunnel open in case she had to make a quick escape.

Why would there be a tunnel that led directly from the outside into her room?

In a flash, Cordissa understood. It was a safety precaution. In case her mother needed to get her killed.

But then she'd ran.

And her mother had killed Tanner instead.

Cordissa grit her teeth and balled her fists in fury. She dared someone to come after her. She wanted to punch something.

Her wish was granted.

The Shadow Knight raced into her room, ebony blade drawn. He was grinning coldly, and his helmet was missing. He purred her name, but it sounded more like a snarl.

Cordissa clenched her fists. She wasn't trained to fight and she didn't even have a sword. All she had was her broken heart and a need for vengeance.

Her heart.

The Shadow Knight charged her, sword raised and ready to deliver the death blow. "Die!" He screamed, his face contorted with rage.

Cordissa stood still, and she waited. She uncurled her fists. There was magic in the air. A sick kind of unreachable magic, but it was there. Cordissa imagined that her fingertips were draining the magic from the air around her. The knight charged closer, until he was in arm's reach. His sword towered higher and higher, tensing to slash down. Cordissa's fingers touched his chest. She breathed in slowly, ignoring the sword. She pressed her fingers inside him, feeling the blood and muscle around her hand. Cordissa pulled his heart from his chest.

The knight gasped, sword clattering to the ground. He waited for his breathing to stop and his body to crumple.

Cordissa studied the heart in her hands. It still thumped rhythmically, but it was caged between her fingers. It glowed with a harsh light. She tried to keep her fingers from clenching, but as she gazed upon the man the heart belonged to, Cordissa couldn't help it. She clenched her fist.

The man drew his last breath as the heart crumpled into dust.

Cordissa stared at her hands in wonder and disgust. She'd literally ripped his heart from his chest. And then she'd crushed it and he'd died.

If only she could do it again.

Cordissa picked up the black sword. She'd earned it, after all. It wasn't worth trading Tanner for, but it was hers now.

Cordissa started out of her room, glancing both ways down the hall. Her dress was torn and her hair was matted and she hadn't slept in days. She hardly looked like royalty anymore. Any servant with half a brain would report her to her mother.

She took of down the corridors. She couldn't be bothered to carry her skirts, so instead Cordissa slashed the tattered hem off. The dress only reached her knees now, but it was so much easier to run in.

Predictably, her mother was in her room. The Queen stood, poised, carefully checking her reflection in a handheld mirror. She twirled a strand of hair around her finger, smirking vainly. Her dress was burgundy, made from so many layers and fabrics that she could have made a dozen dresses from it. "Hello, darling." Cordissa's mother cooed, releasing her brown locks and instead adjusting her eyelids. "What a nice sword you have."

Cordissa grit her teeth. "Why did you send the Shadow Knight after Tanner?"

"Tanner? Was that his name?" The Queen smoothed the front section of her dress. "That one's easy. How am I supposed to set you up with a handsome rich man if you're in love with someone else?"

"Admit it," Cordissa snarls, leveling the black sword at her and stepping forward. "You wanted to make me miserable."

"Not really. I wanted to ship you off somewhere so I could stay queen." Her mother smirked, finally meeting her gaze with cold brown eyes. "The miserable part was just a bonus."

"Why didn't you just kill me, then? You obviously hated me." Cordissa takes another step towards her mother.

The Queen shrugged helplessly, still smiling. "I was trying to be a good mother."

Cordissa slashes the sword across the air between them. There's a metallic sort of zing as it slices the air. "You were a terrible mother!" Her fist clenches around the sword's cold hilt. "No wonder I ran away."

Her mother sets down the mirror with a loving smile. The only love her mother possesses is for her own reflection. She fixes her eyes on Cordissa again, grinning. "You ran away because you were looking for true love." Her benevolent expression falls into a flat stare. "Sweetie, it doesn't exist."

"Because you killed him!"

"So...what? You're going to kill me?"

Cordissa raised her sword slightly, because that was exactly what she was going to do.

"Oh, I see how it is." Her mother grinned psychotically, pulling a sword from the bottom of her dress. It had somehow been hidden in layers of skirts. Cordissa winced in disgust. "First move goes to you."

Cordissa knew next to nothing about swordplay. Tanner had once said he'd wanted to learn, and Cordissa had laughed. He was too nice to kill, too gentle.

She used to think she was the same way.

Cordissa raised her sword and slashed downward, like she'd seen the Shadow Knight do. Her mother swung her sword and blocked the blow, and the impact made Cordissa bite her tongue. She lowered her weapon as quickly as she could and drew it back. Her mother slashed at her, narrowly missing Cordissa's head and slashing off some of her matted brown hair. Cordissa struck back, going for a stab to the gut. Her mother knocked her sword away easily. Cordissa lunged at her mother's gut again, but she parried it easily. Funny word, parried. Tanner used to—

Her mother swung wildly, opening a long cut on Cordissa's arm. Her brown eyes were crazed. Cordissa cursed herself for getting distracted and tried to hit her mother in the ribs with the butt of her sword. The queen twirled and dodged the blow, smacking Cordissa's ribs with the flat of her blade as she came around.

She was pretty sure neither of them were very good at sword fighting, but her mother was clearly better. The older woman demonstrated the fact by opening another cut on Cordissa's side. Cordissa knew she couldn't hold out much longer.

Cordissa raised her sword exactly like she had done on her first move. She moved her right hand from the hilt to her mother's chest. Cordissa breathed in, watching time slow down around her as her fingers reached further and further until they grasped the beating heart. She pulled it free from the blood vessels, holding it in her palm as her mother stared at her, appalled.

"What is that!" The queen demanded.

Cordissa grinned slyly. "Your heart. It's mine now."

Cordissa crushed it between her fingers.

QU€€N

Cordissa's first decree was that the day of Tanner's death was set aside as a day of mourning.

Her second was that everyone from_ that_town had to cover their eyes in her presence. She was so sick of their stares, of their judgement. Her second decree became a sort of fashion statement, and even those in her court began covering their eyes with masks and faces with veils.

Her third was that outsiders were to be welcomed, not scorned.

Her fourth was that magic was banned. That included fortunetellers and people who travelled from other realms.

Cordissa started wearing a veil. She couldn't forget what Tanner had said about wanting her beauty all to himself. She wore red a lot, too. She could never get red out of her head. Red like the hearts she stole and the colour of Tanner's last breath. Red like his favourite flowers.

She grew too tired to talk to other people. Cordissa hired someone to listen to what she said and repeat it. She called him her scribe, but he was much more than that. He was one of the only people who ever heard her voice. He had also been a servant at Tanner's castle.

Cordissa stopped taking hearts just before she banned magic. It was sick. The dust from hearts she'd crushes never seemed to wash off. Cordissa started using beheading instead. It was a lot more practical, and a lot less exhausting on her part.

She built herself a maze to conceal her castle and protect her hearts. On the hard days, she liked to wander through it. No one could bother her there. She liked to think the labyrinth was like her tangled mind. If she could find her way, she wasn't crazy after all.

But no one would believe that.

QU€€N

She became infamous. She became the Queen of Hearts, because of her collection. All the hearts of people she controlled. She liked to think it was also because Cordissa meant 'heart', but she tried not to lie to herself.

It wasn't good for her.


End file.
